Historical and contemporary research indicates that these adverse effects are not uncommon and can affect individuals regardless of their history of mental illness or level of meditation experience. Despite the commercialization and widespread adoption of meditation, the lack of awareness and transparency regarding these risks is concerning, especially in the United States, where the meditation market is valued at $2.2 billion.
Mindfulness often seems like the perfect tonic for stress and mental health issues because it can be practiced at home and for free. Mindfulness is a form of Buddhist-based meditation that focuses on being aware of what you are sensing, thinking, and feeling in the present moment. The first recorded evidence of it, found in India, is over 1,500 years old.
The Dharmatrata meditation scriptures, written by Buddhist communities, describe a range of practices and include reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation, as well as detailed cognitive abnormalities associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation, and depersonalization (when people feel the world is “unreal”).
Over the past eight years, there has been a proliferation of scientific research in this field. These studies show that side effects are not uncommon. In a 2022 study of 953 Americans who regularly meditate, more than 10% of participants experienced side effects that had a significant negative impact on their daily lives and lasted at least a month.
According to a review of over 40 years of research published in 2020, the most common side effects are anxiety and depression. This is followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalization, and fear or phobia. The study also found that side effects can occur even in people with no prior mental illness or who have only moderate experience with meditation, and can lead to long-term symptoms.
There has long been evidence of these negative effects in the Western world: In 1976, Arnold Lazarus, a key figure in the cognitive behavioral science movement, said that meditation, if practiced indiscriminately, could lead to “serious psychiatric disorders such as depression, agitation, and even decompensation of schizophrenia.”
There’s evidence that mindfulness has a positive effect on people’s health. The problem is that mindfulness coaches, videos, apps, and books rarely warn people about its potential negative effects. In his 2023 book McMindfulness, business professor and Buddhist teacher Ronald Purser wrote that mindfulness has become a kind of “capitalist spirituality.”
In the US alone, meditation is worth $2.2 billion (£1.7 billion). It’s time for the mindfulness industry bosses to wake up to their problems. In a 2017 interview with The Guardian, mindfulness movement architect Jon Kabat-Zinn said, “90 per cent of the research is [into the positive impacts] “It’s below standard.”
In his foreword to the 2015 UK cross-party parliamentary report on mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that mindfulness meditation can ultimately transform “who we are as people, as individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a species.”
A religious-like fervor is common among its adherents, as they believe that mindfulness has the power to change not just the individual but the course of humanity. Even many atheists and agnostics who practice mindfulness believe that the practice has the power to increase peace and compassion in the world. Media discussion of mindfulness is also somewhat biased.
His 2015 book “Buddha Pill,” co-authored with clinical psychologist Katherine Wikholm, included a chapter summarizing research into the side effects of meditation. The book received widespread coverage in the media, including an article in New Scientist and a BBC Radio 4 documentary.
Yet in 2022, there was barely any media coverage of the most expensive study in the history of meditation science (funded by research charity the Wellcome Trust with over $8 million). The study tested over 8,000 children (aged 11-14) across 84 schools in the UK between 2016 and 2018. The results showed that mindfulness did not improve children’s mental health compared to a control group, and may even have had a detrimental effect on children at risk of mental health problems.
Ethical implications
Is it ethical to not mention the side effects when selling a mindfulness app, teaching people meditation classes, or even using mindfulness in clinical practice? Given the evidence of how varied and common these side effects are, the answer should be “no.” Yet many meditation and mindfulness instructors believe these practices can only do good and are unaware of the possible side effects.
The most common story I hear from people who have suffered from meditation side effects is that their teachers don’t believe them. They are usually just told to just keep meditating and the side effects will go away. Research on how to practice meditation safely has only recently begun, which means there is no clear advice to give to people yet.
There is a broader problem with meditation in that it deals with abnormal states of consciousness and there are no psychological theories to help understand these states. However, there are resources available to learn about these adverse effects, including websites created by meditators who have experienced serious adverse effects, as well as academic handbooks with sections dedicated to the topic.
In the US, there are clinical services led by mindfulness researchers aimed at people with acute and long-term problems. For now, the public needs to be informed about the potential harms of meditation if it is used as a health maintenance or treatment tool.
(The author is Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology, Coventry University)